Feb 16 What is CMYK and Why is it Stopping Your Flyer From Being Printed?

CMYK stands for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key(Black). It’s a color model that has been used for printing in the past. It refers to the four inks used in the printing process.

More recently though, a new color model is being used with the advent of computers and the Internet. It’s called RGB (Red, green and blue), and unlike CMYK, it’s not ink based colors, but light based colors.

RGB colors are brighter and are displayed better on your devices. PosterMyWall also follows the RGB color model in all of it’s designs, so whenever you create something with us, it’s in the RGB color model.

Problem with Printing

Most kinds of printers, whether inkjet or laser printers follow the RGB color model, as most media these days, including pdfs, are in that format. However, some older printers still follow CMYK. If this is the case with your personal printer, or local printer shop, your images won’t print, and there will be an incompatibility error. Your printer may ask you to provide an image in the CMYK color model. But don’t worry, we will discuss the solution right away!

How to Solve the Problem

The most obvious solution, though not always possible, is to get a printer that can print in RGB. The other solution is to convert your image to the CMYK color model. Here are a couple of websites that allow you to do that, without needing to download any software.